One minute and 10 seconds left,
my hands are sweaty, my heart is racing and tunnel vision is setting in as
I keep my attention focused on the 13-inch screen in front of me. My
fingers rest securely on the button that will hopefully lead me to
victory. I am determined to win. A feeling of dread that someone will
swoop in at the last second and finish in the winners’ circle comes over
me. I am racing against an anonymous audience of 40+ million players and
there is no indication of how many are racing for my finish line.
This is the world of eBay. The
race is all about the hunt for that one item to finish off my toy
collection or wardrobe, and of course my timing makes all the difference.
I have to beat the snipers and the last minute highball bidders to get my
item secured. It is an intense feeling that does not pass until the
auction clock stops ticking. Buying on eBay is just as suspenseful as
selling, but I will cover selling later on. I have to win first.
I am successful this time. No
snipers snuck in at the last minute to steal my much sought after
Christmas edition Buzz Lightyear. There are hard-core bidders that utilize
“sniping” programs to watch over an item without having to be present.
This program will swoop in at the last possible second and take you out by
mere pennies. I have had items “sniped” from me and found myself sitting
behind the terminal utterly frustrated and more determined to find the
exact item and start the bidding war all over again. Often, I will find
the same item for less and have a better chance at taking home the blue
ribbon the second time around.
“Sniping” an auction was
once a manual process whereas an experienced Ebayer would have multiple
windows open on the computer, with multiple bids placed, and refresh the
windows as the auction clock ticked away. Just as the auction was about to
end the sniper would place a last minute bid swooping in to take over
first place. This manual procedure was time consuming and often not too
reliable. How quickly the bid was delivered over the Internet would often
determine whether it was processed in time. Just like automobile traffic,
Internet traffic will also have congestion that slows down the pace of
travel. This was the sniping process until David Eccles, a “picker” who
bought and sold antiques at “flea markets and garage sales, and [resold]
them to dealers”, found his way to eBay (Cohen 119).
Before eBay, all
Eccles knew about computers was how to manage an accounting program. He
searched for books and bought them from
Amazon.com
and taught himself how to write “code” for software programs. He wrote
this code specifically for eBay’s “official clock” that would allow
bidders “to place bids up to the final second”; he named his program
Cricket.jr (Cohen 119). His work was motivated by the search for something
to sell on eBay that was not as hard to distribute as antiques and
collectibles. He found his eBay niche in selling his sniping software to
other “eBayers”. This was an easily produced product with minimal
investment and high marketability. I am fascinated by the ingenuity of
some people and often sit around after something incredibly simple is
created and think “wow, I could have done that but….didn’t”. I think most
of us have had those thoughts from time to time when a new and handy item
comes out and takes the market by storm. Eccles is one of those
self-educated entrepreneurs that has been extremely successful on eBay. [top
of page]
Eccles “soon found
himself selling three hundred to four hundred copies a month, at ten
dollars each” (Cohen 124). Within months the competition had moved into
Eccles’ market and began producing sniping software in mass. But Eccles’
business was not hurt, he soon found himself becoming a consultant to
customers who wanted to perfect their sniping software. He began selling
additional software programs such as an improved version of
Cricket.jr
called Cricket Master as well as software to help sellers manage their
auctions and
Power Chat
for navigating eBay’s message boards.
Sniping is very
popular with hard-core Ebayers, regardless of whether it is manual or by
use of software. In Adam Cohen’s book,
The Perfect Store: Inside eBay, he reports
that in a study of “one thousand auctions [they] found that of those with
more than one bid, fully 18 percent were won in the final sixty seconds”
(Cohen 121). Ebay acknowledges sniping and has considered only allowing
one proxy bid per person but that went against what Omidyar, the founder
of eBay, had set out to do with a community-built auction site. Cohen
quotes Omidyar as saying the “AuctionWeb site from the beginning was that
it would be dynamic and real-time- a social experience in which bidders
interacted with each other to produce the final price” (Cohen 121). The
final price is often what happened to many items “sniped” by last minute
bidders which result in big bucks for some sellers.
Pierre Omidyar
built the frenzy of eBay originally as “AuctionWeb” from his home computer by placing
auctions for used computer parts on his personal web page. There had been
online auctions on the Internet for years but early renditions of Internet
auctions took place on Usenet newsgroup where “sellers put up posts
describing their items, and buyers sent in bids by e-mail” (p43). There
was no way for bidders to actually see the highest bid and they had to
wait until the seller waded through countless e-mails and posted the
current high bid on the Usenet newsgroup board. Of course there was
competition that threatened AuctionWeb and one such site was
Onsale,
which had better funding and was ran by the well-known “Silicon Valley
entrepreneur”, Jerry Kaplan. [top of page]
Jerry launched his site,
Onsale, in May of 1995, the same year that Omidyar launched auctions on
his personal homepage. Omidyar launched his site on Labor Day that year
and began posting information about the site on various newsgroup boards.
Posting auctions on his site was free until Omidyar’s Internet service
provider began complaining that the traffic was congesting their servers
and started charging him “$250 a month, the rate for a commercial account”
(Cohen 94). That was when Omidyar decided charge a fee to the seller for a
portion of the final value of the item sold. Items that sold for over $25
were billed a 2.5% fee and items under $25 were charged a 5% fee. He
worried that this new fee schedule may drive patrons away but saw no other
way to cover his server expense.
Omidyar was severely wrong about the loyalty of
AuctionWeb’s patrons. He got his answer when “envelopes filled with checks
and cash started arriving at his front door” (26). He had taken in more
that the $250 monthly web site fee and instantly became the first Internet
auction site to be profitable in the first month. Everyday more and more
envelopes filled with value-fee money arrived in Omidyar’s mailbox and in
the fourth month of operation he was “topping $10,000” and then decided
“it had become a real business” (Cohen 29). Omidyar quit his day job at
General Magic, a mobile-communications company, and began working fulltime
on AuctionWeb.
With AuctionWeb growing
Omidyar decided he needed more help with the business other than hiring
someone to open the myriad of envelopes of cash. He thought of Jeff Skoll,
a Stanford MBA that he had met through friends. Skoll had founded two
companies in the technology industry and was working for
Knight-Ridder
Information, Inc helping them direct their Internet strategy
(Cohen 30). The idea of AuctionWeb was a tough sell but around
Thanksgiving Skoll reconsidered and agreed to venture into the
transformation of how merchandise exchange was going to be implemented in
the future. He realized that what “Pierre was doing was a lot bigger than
just a simple website” (Cohen 31).
AuctionWeb was
built on the idea of “community”, allowing buyers and sellers to contact
each other via e-mail and the foundation that “sellers did not have to
choose a price in advance-they could charge whatever the market would
bear” (Cohen 31). This is obvious to any user of eBay. I find that the
market definitely sets the price on items since you can list an item for
.01 cent and in the end that item will reach the value that the bidders
believe it is worth at that moment in time. As well as a community
environment on his auction site, Omidyar also had to implement basic
guideline for ethical behavior on the site. An honest and moral seller or
buyer has no problems following basic brotherly behavior but given the
vast ocean of human behavior there are instances were the more unethical
have used eBay to take advantage of innocent users. He felt that
establishing trust and confidence between the buyers and sellers was a
pertinent aspect for Internet transactions. If buyers and sellers had a
disagreement they contacted Omidyar directly and most often the dispute
was from a simple misunderstanding which was resolved quickly. As
AuctionWeb grew so did the complaints and the misunderstandings, which was
increasingly taking up his time trying to “enforce good behavior”. He
knew he had to come up with an idea that would take the pressure off of
him and place it back on the community (Cohen 27).
Omidyar
developed “the Feedback Forum” so that the complaints he was dealing with
on a daily basis would land in the feedback forum related to the buyer and
the seller that were doing the complaining. This forum was placed in each
person’s site to allow users to leave their comments, positive and
negative as well as neutral. The positive comments would result in a plus
one, the negative feedback would result in a minus one and neutral would
have no impact on the score. The score would then be displayed next to the
users name and be available through a link for anyone to view. Along with
the feedback were rules that if a users feedback resulted in a – 4 that
would be the point in which they would be banned from using AuctionWeb.
The community dubbed this “NARU”- meaning “no longer a registered user”.
This format remained in tact through the transformation from AuctionWeb to
eBay. [top of page]
Competition
can be stiff on Ebay at any given moment in time. According to a Business
Wire report in July of 2002 there were a record 49.7 million registered
users with a hosting of 145.2 million listings up on the anonymous auction
block (Business Wire 2). Onsale was eBay’s competition in the beginning
but had one major difference that set them apart from eBay. Onsale
actually took possession of the auction items and inspected them before
sending them out to the winning bidder. This meant that Onsale had a much
larger financial overhead than eBay. They had to spend money on employment
costs, warehouse expenses along with the usual server fees to run the
auction site. EBay had none of these factors since the ideal was to put
the bidder and the seller together as a unit.
Onsale
is still in the market today but does not possess the status that eBay
does. I visited Onsale’s site and found it to look much like eBay’s site
but had very little to choose from. The site mainly deals in computer
parts, hardware, electronic devices and some vacation packages. On an
average I found that there were only a dozen or more items that would show
up under any given search. This does not even come close to what you end
up with when you place a search on eBay, regardless of what you are
searching for. That is why selling is so fun on eBay; you can sell
anything that fits within the guidelines for acceptable merchandise on
eBay.
Selling on
eBay is absolutely comparable to the rush of being the winning bidder.
Going to the computer each morning and logging on to your personal eBay
page which is a comprehensive overview of all your activity on eBay and
seeing the bright green font indicating that someone has bid your item(s)
is almost better than having Starbucks in your kitchen. The sight of
money, money, money can replace the need for a caffeine jolt first thing
in the morning as well as a great feeling to go to bed with at night.
After an
auction ends and the time comes for the high bidder to pay his dues it is
up to the “auctioneer” how that transaction will take place. As a seller
there are many options of collecting payment, some old and some new. You
can accept the “snail mail” version of money orders or checks but the
quickest, easiest and most popular way of completing a transaction is by
using an Internet e-commerce source such as Paypal. With the speed of
technology today it is as simple as the ABC’s. That is if you can get
over the fear of releasing personal information onto the World Wide Web. I
have found that large companies offer safeguards against information
pirating.
Nowadays most
places have secured servers that encrypt any information sent over the
Internet and if you do release information you can easily tell if it is
secure by looking at the URL address to see if there is an “s” after the
HTTP protocol. If there is not an “s” then the site you are on is not
secure. Basic awareness is also the best way to safeguard your
information. Always make sure that you keep an eye on your bank accounts,
credit cards and debit cards to look out for any unauthorized transactions
as well as changing your password often and not responding to any e-mails
that request personal financial or password information.
Paypal is an
e-commerce Internet company that provides a consumer payment service via
e-mail and bank accounts, as well as credit cards. It is often referred to
as “e-mail money”. PayPal handles “200,000 transactions per day--nearly
three out of every four e-mail money transactions on the Internet.
Investment firm Robertson Stephens projects 100 million e-mail money
transactions across all payment service providers in 2001. The same firm
projects that the total market for person-to-person payments will grow to
four billion transactions by 2005, at which point 42 million people will
be using e-mail money” (Jones 1). I personally use Paypal to handle all of
my auction transactions and feel quite safe in doing so. It is like having
a bank account on the internet, complete with a debit visa card, money
market account and a virtual filing system for all of my eBay
transactions. [top of page]
Using a service
such as
Paypal
to track all of your auctions is a blessing for the bookkeeping end of
eBaying (present tense term used for someone who actively sells or buys on
eBay). Paypal offers free sign up along with a $5 bonus for new members
as well as a $5 bonus for every member you refer. The service is free for
buyers who use Paypal to purchase items on the Internet through providers
that accept Paypal payments. Many Internet companies such as Amazon,
Barnes and Nobles, as well as individual seller’s sites have the Paypal
option upon checkout. To obtain a balance in Paypal you can transfer money
from your bank account or charge to your credit card to pay for purchases.
If you have a significant balance in your account you can sign up for a
money marker account that earns interest on your balance. For sellers this
option can help offset the minimal charge that Paypal has for payments
made to your account.
Sellers are
charged a minimal fee of 0.7% to 0.29%+.30 cents for each transaction paid
into the account. This supports the transaction tracking service for your
account. For instance, in my account I can see all of my auctions that
have sold on eBay, those that have been paid for and those that have not
been paid for. I can print invoices and mailing labels right from the site
by clicking on the shipping button next to the auction information. I can
also see all of the auctions that I have won and send the payment without
any additional steps. All of my shipping information is stored in my
account so there is no need to do any additional typing. When an auction
has been paid for via Paypal an e-mail alerting the seller of the amount
as well as the shipping address is sent out immediately. Once an auction
has been paid for, on average the confirmation e-mail will arrive within
10 minutes. If the buyer does not have enough money in their account there
will be a “pending transaction” alert sent out as well as an e-mail as
soon as the appropriate amount has successfully cleared the account.
[top of page]
Recently
Paypal began offering debit cards for their customers’ on-line accounts.
These cards work exactly like a checking account visa debit card with no
transaction fee for the usage. With this account the cardholder gets a
cash back bonus of 1.5% for every transaction, which offsets the fees that
sellers incur. This is also an easy way of tracking the amount spent on
shipping instead of transferring the money to your checking account to
cover the costs spent on shipping. Of course the buyer pays all shipping
costs and these are calculated on-line in many different ways as well.
Debit card access to the money in a Paypal account also creates the
freedom to purchase items at all internet sites that accept Mastercard and
Visa, which again eliminates the need to transfer money to your checking
account. This is a new frontier that is only going to get larger and
easier to use as all the bugs are worked out of the system.
Ebay has not only become
one of the largest online auction sites but I think they have helped
support and implement online e-commerce, along with other online shopping
services. Just thinking about the amount of additional delivery services
that have been created by online auctions and Internet shopping is
overwhelming. According to the Business Wire report for eBay’s second
quarter financial statement for 2002 there were
$3.4 billion dollars in
gross merchandise sales which seems to equate to a major increase in the
delivery and shipping industry (Business Wire 1). For instance, the
United States Postal Service now offers
online postage
purchases by downloading a program into your computer and
providing a debit or credit card for postage charges and then the postage
stamp is printed out on your own computer for you to apply to the package.
There is a minimal fee for this service but in today’s busy world saved
time is worth the money spent. As well as postage purchasing online you
can also order, for free, all
priority mailing
supplies and have them shipped to your door. Most auctions on
eBay are sent out in priority packaging since the supplies are free and
come in almost any size needed to ship an item. Most post offices have
these supplies sitting out in the lobby for easy pickup for those who
prefer to visit the post office.
Selling on eBay is
easy but a few tips can always help the process go smoother. I have been
selling and buying on eBay for 3 years and have learned from experience as
well as reading tips from other professionals that improvement is always
in the making. So, here are a few tips for both buying and selling. I will
start out with selling since it is the most fun, as far as my experience
has led me to believe. I like to make more money so that I have more to
spend and I believe this is true for most of us.
[top of page]
$elling:
Title: This is absolutely the most important part of the
auction. Making good use of this space is essential since this is
where the search engines find their data. Do not worry about using
proper grammar here and avoid using complicated abbreviations that
search engines are going to skip over. The object is to achieve the
greatest amount of coverage so that your item shows up in the maximum
amount of searches possible. Remember that some users will search for
plurals and others won’t so if you have the space include both such as
“shirt” and “shirts” or “picture” and “pictures”. Use appropriate name
brands, materials, and time periods if applicable. If your item is
“like” something that would appeal to a certain group you can state
something “like Tiffany” or “not Tiffany”, which would bring up your
search to those that searching for Tiffany articles. State sizes
and use numbers as well as letters or abbreviations that are common
like “L” for Large or “xxxl” for ‘3xl”.
Description:
This is where marketing comes into play. It is important to market
your item and make it mouthwatering to those viewing it. You are the
seller and you want to entice folks to buy your item. Remember to use
plurals as well as singular forms of spelling. You can cover a lot
more ground in the description area and the search engine will search
both the title and the description. Spell things out here. You can
spell out the measurements of your item, the color, and the shape.
Make sure you think of misspellings that may be commonplace for your
item and include those here. Again, don’t worry too much about
grammar. The important thing is to get maximum coverage and when
someone is reading your item description they will understand the
multiple expressions and mentally skip right over them. Readers
want the guts of the item so avoid using a lot of filler words. Keep
it simple but yet complete coverage of the item is imperative.
Make sure that if your
item has any flaws that you list them clearly in your description. You
do not want an unhappy buyer who is going to demand their money back
and/or leave you negative feedback for misrepresenting the
merchandise. Utilize words that soften the condition of used
items such as “gently used” instead of “worn” or “second-hand”.
Include details such as significant marks that may be important to
collectors, construction techniques used, dates, measurements and
activities that this item would be used for. Do a search
yourself for items that are similar to the one you are listing. See
what other eBayer’s are doing to make their auction stand out and bring
your attention to it, and then copy what they are doing. Using type marks
such as “~” or “*” or “<” in your title can make it stand out against the
others.
The Photo:
Digital photos are essential to an auction. The buyer is more willing
to pay for an item they can actually view first. Digital cameras are
relatively inexpensive and easy to use. Cheap cameras can take good
enough pictures to get the image across to the viewer. You can also
have regular photos placed on a CD at most photo finishing stores if
you do not have a digital camera or if your computer will not support
the software for one. Anyway you do it is fine as long as a picture is
available.
A good picture is essential. You must
be able to see the item clearly and taking pictures in natural light works
best. Place your item in an area without any clutter. Use a solid
background and make sure the product is not obscured by shadows. You do
not want to confuse the viewer. For a beginner, using eBay’s seller
format on their site is okay but time consuming. I recommend using eBay’s
auction listing program,
Turbo Lister.
This program runs from your desktop and is simple to use. After all your
auctions are listed you can upload your auctions to eBay while doing other
things. All of eBay’s listing options are available in Turbo Lister plus
additional tools that you do not have access to from using the site
format. In Turbo Lister you can change the font of your lettering, the
color, add bold, underline and choose borders at no additional cost.
You are allowed to put one free
photo in your auction and for a few cents more you can add additional
photos through eBay. Another way to place photos in your auction is to
upload your photos to an image hosting service such as www.freepichosting.com or choose from the myriad of hosting sites on the internet. Hosting
simply means that you are placing your photos on another server that you
can access and retrieve the URL’s (universal resource link) for. Some will
host photos for free and others will charge a small fee. You can place an
HTML code, for free, into your description area to bring up the photos
that you have hosted on another site. Simply add the line: <img src=”THE
URL FOR THE PHOTO GOES HERE”>. You must have the quotation marks in the
code to make the image appear. Make sure you break your paragraph after
the text and between the photos with the code <p>. [top
of page]
This process is time
consuming until you get it memorized but if you are placing multiple
photos in many different auctions this can save money in the long run.
I recommend using the “gallery” option for photos on eBay which will
place your first photo next to the title on the search page for an
additional .25 cents. A photo next to the title will bring more
viewers to your site and increase the chances of a successful sale.
Pricing:
I am still out on this one. Going low will bring in more viewers and
possibly more bids but ultimately the auction will end at what the market
value is for that product at that given time.
eBay charges
.30 cents for items listed under $9.99 up to a maximum of $3.30 for
items $200 and above plus 5.25% of the closing price up to $25.
For items over $25 to $1000 the fee changes to 5.25% of the first $25
and an additional 2.75% for the remainder up to $1000. These fees are
for items outside of real estate and automobiles. The best
advice I can give on pricing your item is to visit completed auctions
(available on any search page) which show the price the item sold for
in the past 30 days. This will give you a feel for pricing your
product as well as viewing what other sellers originally listed the
item for. I always try to stay under the $9.99 price for most of
my items just to save on the auction fees. eBay offers a “buy it
now” option for an additional .05 cents which allows bidders to
purchase your item at a fixed price determined by you. This option is
a personal choice; I enjoy the excitement of watching my auctions to
see the final price.
Customer Relations:
When you list on eBay you ultimately will run into a buyer who wants
additional information. Always answer any e-mails regarding your item in a
timely manner, this could make or break a sale. Purchase a small scale so
you can weigh your item and configure shipping by using the USPS online
shipping calculator at www.usps.com. When an auction ends promptly send
out the invoice with the shipping charges to the buyer. Be prepared to
mail your item in a timely manner as soon as payment is received. Find a
post office that is close and convenient for you or use the home postage
meter provided by the USPS website. Fast shipping is appreciated and
will reflect in your feedback. Always leave feedback for your
successful auctions as this will trigger them to leave feedback in
return. State clearly in your auctions what your policies are.
Cover shipping, payment, and return or dissatisfaction policies.
Put a time limit on payment for the auction after it ends. The average
time is a 5 to 10 day payment window. Review other auctions to
find samples of policy statements.
When to begin and end your
auction: You have to
consider time frames when listing your auctions. There is data that show
auctions receive more bids if they end in the evening and/or on a weekend.
EBay offers a 3 day, 5 day or 7 day auction at no additional fee or a 10
day auction for .10 cents more. The auction will end on the hour that it
began. For example if you listed your auction at 6 am it will end on the
ending date at 6 am. I recommend ending your auction in the evening, since
most bids are placed on auctions in the last few minutes. This allows
eBayers to finish their daily routine and settle in at night to play eBay.
Consider, if possible, time changes. Try to choose a centralized time
when most people will be able to bid on your auction. I had a lady who
lives in the United Kingdom, set her alarm to wake up at 3 a.m. in
order to place the winning bid on a child’s comforter set.
Holidays are poison for auctions since most people are away on
vacation or busy with family gatherings. Do not end your auction on or
around a holiday. If you are a beginner, be patient and honest.
[top of page]
What to Sell:
Thrift Store
Hints and more…..
You can sell most anything on
eBay. The list is endless. Look around your house, in your closet, get rid
of those left over Christmas presents that you didn’t really want in the
first place, check out your children’s closets and toy boxes and don’t
forget the garage! Even the Oakland and Sacramento airports have teamed up
with the California Department of General Services and are selling
confiscated items on eBay under the user name:
CaliforniaGold2000 (Cosh
1). I checked this out for myself and found it to be very active and full
of items that are unacceptable past airport security. Clothing that you or
your children have outgrown but are still in great shape will go for much
more on eBay than you could get at a garage sale. Think of eBay as a
virtual garage sale. It is for those folks that wouldn’t be caught dead
rummaging through used clothing or household items but they will do it
anonymously on the Internet. I refer to items you personally own as
“first-hand items” and this is a great place to begin, since you are not
really investing anything additional into the venture. [top
of page]
“Second-hand” items are those that you pick
up at thrift stores such as
Goodwill,
Salvation Army
or
St. Vincent de Paul
for a relatively cheap price. I have found that name brands definitely
sell the best. I deal mostly in clothing and do not have much knowledge
of antiques or collectibles but I know you can pick up great items in
those categories if you know what you are looking at. Even Goodwill has an
online auction site that resembles the eBay program and format closely.
Everyone’s doing it eBay style.
The thrift stores are
constantly putting items out each and every day. Many stores have daily or
weekly specials that they do not advertise unless you happen to come into
the store. Look for posted reader boards as you enter the store to see
what their daily special is. Goodwill has bins in their stores where they
place overflow or slightly damaged goods that are replaced with a fresh
batch every morning. You should shop early and shop often. Don’t forget
the garage sales! Here you can always bargain with the seller. Don’t be
afraid to bargain. Always ask if they would sell their item for less and
more often than not you will be the winner at the garage sale.
Very large clothing sells well
since a lot of larger people have hard time finding clothing in the
first place. Sportswear that is initially quite expensive and bought
by the hopeful outdoorsman that didn’t quite match up in the
wilderness is always a great find and guaranteed seller. Logo items
that are unique or different sell quite well also.
Now for the Buyers Tips:
Buying can be extremely fun since there are not many items that you
cannot find on eBay. Try your hand at searching eBay for the oddest
item you can think of. If you are going to become a buyer you must be
careful not to bid carelessly. Think of it as driving a car, if you
drive recklessly you eventually will get a ticket and jeopardize your
license. You are being watched on eBay, by both management and
community members. Your feedback will represent your trustworthiness
as a buyer and with too many goof ups eBay will suspend you from
future activity. [top of page]
Searching:
This is where the fun begins. That is, after you have registered yourself
and become a legitimate eBayer. Registration is free and easy but only
necessary if you are going to buy or sell. There are many ways to
begin your search on eBay. You can browse by category or just enter
your item description in the search engine at the top of the page and
wait for the results. If your results are too narrow you can check the
box that will allow the search to facilitate both the title and item
description area. If results are too broad you can narrow them down by
following the tutorial in the advanced search area. You can also sort
your results by auctions that are just ending or are have just begun
as well as “buy it now” auctions. Each search will turn up a list on
the left hand side of the screen that will allow you to sort the items
by specific categories such as “men” or “women” or “antiques” and
“modern”.
Bidding: When
you set out to purchase an item have a price range in mind and stick
to it. Try not to let the frenzy of being outbid break your pocket
book. There will be many future auctions with the same or similar
items. Let someone else get the bidding fever. It is no joke when I
say “fever”, according to Teri Goldberg for MSNBC there are now
psychologists treating online addictions in the same manner as they
would treat a gambling addiction. The report was chopped full examples
of people who have gone into debt, developed eating and social
disorders that are associated with their compulsive use of online
auctions (Goldberg, 2,3). Online bidding can be addictive and
dangerous to those who live on a budget but at the same time for those
who do live on a budget eBay can save them money if the game is played
smart. If you find an item that you must have and are up against
competition you can review the “sniping” procedure at the beginning of
this paper. You can also download a sniper program to ensure your
success. Always check out the sellers’ other items in case
they have something else you want and then you can usually save on
shipping expenses and have all auctions shipped in the same package.
When you place a bid you enter the maximum amount that you want to pay
for that item. Your amount is kept confidential from both the seller
and other bidders. The eBay system will then place bids on your behalf
and will only use as much of your bid as necessary to maintain your
spot as the winner. Once someone else outbids you an email will
automatically be sent out informing you that you have been outbid. If
there is time left in the auction you can go back and place more bids
if you want to. You can check your auctions easily from the “my eBay”
page once you have logged in. You can also place items on this page
that you want to “watch”. If you come across and item that you find
interesting and want to keep track of it here you can place it on your
eBay page by clicking on the link in the auction page titled: ”watch
this item.”
Paying:
Be prepared to pay! Do not bid
if you do not have the funds to cover the auction. Read the
seller’s policy on paying and shipment prior to bidding. Make sure you
are willing to comply with their rules. Check shipping fees on all
auctions. It is against eBay’s rules to pad shipping fees but many
sellers still do so to ensure themselves a little extra money.
If the rules are unclear ask the seller before placing a bid by
clicking on the link “as seller a question” that is available in all
auctions. Most honorable sellers will answer your question in a
timely manner and if they don’t just find a similar item from another
seller. Pay an additional .45 cents to get delivery confirmation
placed on your package. This allows you or the seller to track your
item if it gets lost in the vast sea of packages. If you do pay for
confirmation, contact the seller after a few days and request the
tracking number before it gets filed away or forgotten about. Then
just wait for the package to arrive and enjoy the contents once it
does. Always remember to leave feedback! This will generate feedback
in return which will build your credibility on the New Frontier called
eBay. [top of page]
Works Cited
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Quarter 2002 Financial Results." Business Wire 18 July
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Cohen, Adam.
The Perfect Store:
Inside Ebay . Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2000.
Cosh, Colby. “How to buy back your own
stuff.” Citizen Centre Report. 31 March 2003. 30.7.
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Goldberg, Teri. “Bidding till you’re broke.
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Jones, Russ. “The PayPal Phenomenon: Lessons
from the Leading Edge of Online Payments."
CommerceNet Security and
Internet Payments Research. 9 Nov. 2001. 3 April 2003.
<http://www.commerce.net/research/ebusiness-strategies/2k1/2k1_14_r.html>
Levy, Steven. "How to Play the eBay Game."
Newsweek (2002): 58. EBSCOhost Academic Search
Elite. Central Oregon
Community College, Bend. 12 May 2003.
<http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp>
Somerson, Paul. "Become a Zen Master of
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<http://search.epnet.com/direct.asp>
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